Stripperella

The only thing this show is missing is a cheesy 60s action title card that says "KA-BOOB!"

Hoo boy.

I've been putting it off for a while, but it's finally time to dig into this show and have a long hard rap about it. To put it one way, as a Reviewer of animated pornography, Stripperella is kind of a big deal. Not because I have any profound analyses to expound upon, nor will this be a glowing recollection of an underrated gem, but mostly because Stripperella is one of the precious few, extremely rare examples of an American animated series that has tits in it.

Yeah, you read that correctly when I said "extremely rare". Despite the abundant commonality of boobs in American media, you'll virtually never be graced by the presence of nipple in your everyday cartoon watching. Even in this, the era of streaming, free from the binds of network television censorship that forcibly molded all cartoons from the 1930s onward into predetermined formats with only "acceptable" levels of depravity allowed, American productions still clench ever so tightly to their pearl-clutching purity politics when it comes to even the faintest whiff of female nudity.

Most of the show doesn't even contain any porn whatsoever, and yet is still in pole position in the running for the most boobular American cartoon in existence.

And yes, the word "politics" was an intentional choice there. Many people don't realize it, but every single choice we make in our daily lives is a political one, because that is, definitively, what politics are. Policies. A system of governance that informs or reinforces every single decision or thought we make. And the decision to never show "female-presenting nipples" in an animated television series is a clear example of politics at work, labeling and deriding feminine nudity as "obscene or objectionable material".

You may notice I'm using the word "female" a lot here. This is the real meat of what makes this whole thing "political": the so-called vulgarity of nudity is not applied uniformly across the gender spectrum, and ultimately just affects women (or whatever Standards and Practices deems "female-presenting"). For an easy example, let's talk about butts. How many instances can you think of in an American cartoon in which a woman's bare ass is fully visible? I'm not talking about thongs, nor pants-falling-down buttcracks, not wedgies, but an open-face on-camera no-panties money shot of bare naked cheeks? I'm guessing the total is one you can count on one hand, if you can even count any at all.

Now, how many male butts have you seen? Yeah, that's what I thought.

I mean, it sure as hell ain't for lack of an audience.

Notably, even the famously Adults-Only 2019 Harley Quinn animated series uses convenient foreground objects to obstruct and obscure Harley's sacred crack during sexy times, while Ivy bizarrely cups her bare tits for modesty's sake, even while on-screen orgasming. It's readily apparent that the concept of SEX is totally okay in cartoons, but seeing NUDITY is only allowed when it's funny, and the censors apparently think female nudity is NEVER funny. Even innocuous kids' shows are allowed to show boys and men - butts, nipples and all - without anyone batting an eye. And that is 1000% a political stance to take.

Look, I get that lewdity and titty-lation aren't everyone's cup of tea, and that's fine. But what kind of message does this mindset send to us about women's bodies? How do you think it makes people feel about themselves, knowing that certain basic parts of their body are considered obscene, and only because of something as arbitrary as their gender? And why are we so insistent on keeping things this way in our American cartoons, even in the here and now, when people have easier access to overseas jigglious anime than ever before?

...anyway, this review is supposed to be about Stripperella, so let's talk about that now.

Let's face it, if the show had been about Chipperella, it would have ran for six seasons and a movie.

A one-season wonder of a cartoon produced in 2003 for the steaming testosterous cesspool that was Spike TV (formerly "The Nashville Network", now sheepishly known only as "Paramount Network"), Stripperella represents an unusual breed of cartoon that defies the restrictive nature of the Hays code and pushes the envelope toward a more anime-esque level of risque antics (no matter how small a distance it actually ends up going).

Not only does it reject the traditional Christian conservative values regularly imposed on our stateside cartoons, it actually leverages this puritanical climate to create something that is both bawdy and crude, yet also endearing and - dare I even suggest - empowering? Shocking, I know, but given the raging hate-boner for female nudity that permeates our cultural landscape*, a show simply centered around a stripper doing her thing and living her life in this country is an equal but opposite political stance to the one I mentioned above.

*I should mention, I know there are plenty of animated MOVIES with naked women in them, but for this review I'm strictly speaking about animated SERIES, as in: a show with 11-to-22-minute episodes made to air either on a television network or as a series for a streaming service. Horny classics like Heavy Metal, Cool World, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit are all major productions on a whole other scale, a very different league than what I'm talking about here.

When is Sarah McLachlan going to record a soul-stirring ballad encouraging us to support our local erotic dancers?

An unlikely collaboration between Marvel mogul Stan Lee, Baywatch icon and Playboy cover girl Pamela Anderson, and Kevin Kopelow (yes, the stage manager from Nickelodeon's "All That"), Stripperella is a sarcastic superhero/secret agent parody series about a woman named Erotica Jones who lives a double life as a stripper at a high-end club and a masked action hero keeping the world safe from villainy. Each episode is entirely self-contained with its own villain (on rare occasion, a recurring one), and relies on comical or coincidental solutions instead of fleshing out its flesh-baring cast or building up any kind of story arc. Figures that one of the only animated American sex comedies can't even hit a climax.

Each episode flips back and forth between Erotica's two identities, taking place at the so-called gentleman's club (lovingly named "The Tender Loins") and a secret government facility tracking the movements of various evildoers. Rather than connecting the two locations or hosting a whole cadre of secret agent strippers to fight crime as an organization, Erotica runs her crimefighting game solo and must maintain her comically flimsy cover in the presence of her fellow dancers. Called into action whenever her navel piercing rings, she leaps into action Adam West style to deal with whichever harebrained bozo is up to this week's mischief.

Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb...

The actual sexual content of the show is - you might have guessed - extremely tame, and focuses mostly on striptease and pole dancing scenes, while Stripperella's action sequences focus on innuendo and contrived situations. The show works hard to cram in as many laughs as possible - visual puns and allusive sexual imagery alike - giving it about the same sex appeal as a bad porn parody (minus the actual fuckin') or maybe an Elvira movie. The absolute most you're going to see in a show like this is a few stray nipples and nothing more, so temper your boner's expectations and prepare to laugh more than stroke it.

While the animation itself is surprisingly quite fluid and lively, the show's visual identity as a titty cartoon holds no candle to the anime staple of jiggle physics, and earns its 18+ rating on the "audacity" of simply showing nips (when it can even be bothered to do so). Still, the club's dance sequences are great, relying on an excellent blend of sensual movements and playful costume gimmicks. I definitely spot an inkling of older anime influence in the action scenes, but it generally sticks to the more realistic and grounded style of late 80s/early 90s superhero shows, so you have to take what you can get in that department.

Okay, just one breast expansion gag, as a treat.

With all that in mind, what the show lacks in overt nudity it tries to make up for with sheer goofiness. Much like all James Bond spoofs, Erotica is regularly outfitted with a variety of wacky gadgets like laser lipstick, a tampon dagger/grappling hook, and a micro camera implanted in a tongue piercing, and she faces off against themed villains with haha-funny names like Doctor Cesarian and Queen Clitoris. The only subtle thing about the show's entire sense of humor is its use of celebrity cameos. Rather than feature a given celebrity in a voice role, the background characters are almost entirely composed of recognizable faces for those paying attention.

The real bummer is that in order to appeal to its network's core audience, the show also leans heavily on that familiar early 00s notion that - thinking of itself as more of an "offensive" show than a "subversive" one - ALL of its humor must also be rooted in being offensive. This includes the usual suspects like mocking mental disabilities or regurgitating ethnic stereotypes, among other unsavory things, but not in great excess. In some ways it almost seems inevitable, given that strip clubs are a scene that tend to lean right-wing in nature due to their primary clientele being crusty old men and the younger generation who idolize them. It's not ALL awful, the show does contain some genuinely funny self-aware bits, but there were definitely unnecessary moments that can't be easily taken with a grain of salt.

Accurate depiction of conservative men in the mere presence of pokies.

Nevertheless - and always a plus in my book - despite its need to be accessible and relatable to superhero fans, the show never once shies away from engaging in good old cartoony slapstick. Stripperella floats down to safety by catching air drafts in her parachute-like hair, villains threaten to turn supermodels into massive blobs by installing body-morphing (or exploding) breast implants, and people of all (adult) ages and shapes regularly take to the dance stage, proving that everyone is someone's fantasy. There's a little something here for just about every variety of kinkster, but especially for the clowns among us who just love to laugh at sex.

And I think that's ultimately why I'm willing to extend so much grace to this show. We could all stand to treat sex a little less sacred and stop forcing ourselves to feel guilty about our pleasures. Allowing yourself to enjoy dumbass cartoons like Stripperella is a good way to break free of the shackles of shame-mongering, and even if it's far from perfect, it's still a good place to relax and reset your brain with some ass 'n titty antics.

Even though the show is listed as having only one season, there is an unexplained major art style shift in the latter half, leading me to suspect a troubled production history. Unfortunately nobody seems to really cares about this show outside of making fun of its existence, so details are a bit hard to come by.

So, completely honest final opinion, despite its glaring flaws and the cultural struggle against American puritanical dogma it embodies, Stripperella is still an enjoyable show for those of us fond of crude and campy lewd jokes. Even underneath its conservative-coded surface, there beats a heart that runs on good-natured (if misguided) ribaldry and a simple desire to entertain. I found myself laughing much harder at the unpredictable nonsense that happens at the strip club than the comic book spoofs, and I think even without the Stan Lee influence the show could have been just as good by itself in that regard.

American cartoons still have a long, LONG way to go if they ever want to catch up to anime in terms of sex comedies, and it's clear that our country is in no hurry to even attempt it seeing as there hasn't been much progress on that front SINCE Stripperella. And even if we weren't constantly at war with being allowed to enjoy horny hijinks, the current state of the American animation industry and the streaming services slowly choking it more and more each day don't leave me with much hope that things will change any time soon.

For lack of any production studios here in the states, our only real outlet for animated porn right now is the independent creators out on Pornhub working ceaselessly to bring us such magnanimous works as high-definition renders of Mrs Incredible taking it up the ass, or the fetish communities who make beloved cartoon characters fart in each other's faces or whatever they're into these days.

Bible-thumpers be damned, sex workers and pornographers are the real angels in this world.

If you enjoyed Stripperella and want to watch something else in a similar vein, I think the best possible show I can recommend is an anime (yes, despite what you may have heard online, it IS an anime) by the name of Panty & Stocking. Two sex-loving angels get kicked out of heaven for bad behavior and must buy their way back in by collecting coins from the demons they defeat on earth, dredging up all manner of lewd references and toilet humor they can along the way. An equal mix of horny and ridiculous, following that same path of "offensive" humor and crude but clever jokes, Panty and Stocking tops the charts for the anime that feels most like an American cartoon, and it's almost assured that if you liked one, you'll probably like the other.

Other solid recs are - unsurprisingly - also Japanese in origin. Pretty much any classic nudie action OVA will fit the bill, but I'd recommend Variable Geo, Agent Aika, Kekko Kamen, and Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gautaman, if you can track them down. Non-anime follow-ups are slim pickings, but the aforementioned Harley Quinn series is definitely in the same camp if you're willing to do the inexplicably American thing of trading visible nipples for excessive bloody violence.

Who among us has never been so cold that they felt they could do this exact thing?

But yeah, that's all for Stripperella. A goofy campy action parody that defies the American standards of prudism while subverting expectations and giving the bimbos and thots of the world a moment in the hero spotlight. If you want a sex comedy that's longer or more substantial in terms of story, you'll have no choice but to look to anime, because even 20 years later, America simply doesn't believe that cartoons about tits and ass are worth producing, and that's the bottom line.

That said, if you know of any other non-anime cartoons about sex and various jiggly bits that I'm not aware of (from ANY country in the world, mind you!), please send them my way! I'm always down to learn about new forms of animated porn - soft or explicit - and I strongly feel like the world at large can do better. Japan can't be the only country producing this stuff (though I do thank them for their tireless commitment to the cause), so anything you've got, hit me with it!

See you again for more in the future!

Not to complain or pit two bad bitches against each other, but personally, I would really love to see more cartoons about ASS than yet another titty-jiggler.